I spent my childhood and youth in Leipzig in East Germany. It was during the 60’s and 70’s, a time when the signs of WWII were still everywhere to see. The streets were all grey and brown and the houses marked with hundreds of holes from gunfire. Our playgrounds were old abandoned gardens and empty spaces. And there in the ruins of destroyed houses we played robber and gendarme.

Every year I celebrated my birthday in Spring with my grandparents. They had a house with a big garden in the beautiful landscape of Thüringen. I enjoyed this time and I loved to play with the neighbor’s child. We ran thru the meadows, watched wild rabbits and deer and gathered flowers beside the paths and in the forest nearby.
From the fields I could see a hill on the horizon and a tower on top with a light that twinkled in the night. At this time I did not know, that this tower was the memorial to the former concentration camp Buchenwald.

Later, in my grandparents bookshelf I found a book, the cover a black and white photograph with skinny people in striped clothes. Inside I saw photographs of people with big eyes who looked at me and dead bodies piled in mountains. My grandmother found me with the book in my hands. She took it away and said that it was not for my eyes. I was maybe 8 years old.

Both of my parents were born in 1940 and both of my grandfathers were soldiers in the Wehrmacht in Poland during the years 1940/41. One died there at the age of 19 in July 1941 under mysterious circumstances. The other came back and never spoke a word about the war.
As a teenager I wanted to know more about my grandfathers. But my parents did not speak to me about any of this. They still don’t speak to me about it. Today I am 52 years old.

About my work

My work as an artist is influenced by the historical circumstances, the political situation and the echoes of World War II that had been over 19 years before my birth. But even so, my photography is not based on a linear flow regarding time and place. In my recent work the single image becomes less important than the photographic series I develop over years. I want to look deeper, behind the outside appearance of things around me at a certain moment. Therefor I break single images away from their original background and the time in which they were taken and combine them with images I find in my family’s photo albums. The process of fragmenting, reconnecting and then editing of images from different sources, allows me to show my connection to the world and how it influences my feelings, fears and hopes, my wishes and dreams.